Georgia

Overview

During the 2022-2023 school year, Georgia preschool enrolled 73,462 children, an increase of 285 from the prior year. State spending totaled $388,314,860, and an additional $26,471,608 in federal recovery funds supported the program, up $1,902,930 (0.5%), adjusted for inflation, since last year. State spending per child (including federal recovery funds) equaled $5,646 in 2022-2023, up $4 from 2021-2022, adjusted for inflation. Georgia met 8 of 10 quality standards benchmarks.

What's New

The final report from the Georgia Pre-K Longitudinal Study was released in spring 2023 and followed a statewide sample of 1,169 children from pre-K through fourth grade. Fourth grade results reveal that while students continued to gain skills and perform at or above the national average, most skills were not acquired as quickly as in pre-K and kindergarten. Children who had attended Georgia pre-K had better language, literacy, and executive function in fourth grade compared to children who did not attend any pre-K. Overall, results suggest that a key strength of Georgia’s Pre-K Program is building foundational literacy skills for reading.

Background

Georgia’s Pre-K Program launched in 1992 as a small pilot program and expanded in 1995 to become the nation’s first state-funded universal preschool program for 4-year-olds. State lottery revenues generate funding for the program, which is provided in a variety of settings, including public schools, private child-care centers, faith-based organizations, Head Start agencies, state colleges and universities, and military facilities.

In 2011, the Georgia General Assembly authorized an evaluation of Georgia’s Pre-K Program. In response to the General Assembly, DECAL commissioned national experts at the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to conduct a series of studies to measure the impact of the state’s nationally renowned pre-K program. Reports and summaries from the studies are available here.

Reports include recent results from the Pre-K Longitudinal Study designed to examine the short- and long-term learning outcomes for children who attended Georgia’s Pre-K as well as the quality of their preschool and early elementary school experiences. The report from the fifth year of the study was issued in January 2021. The final report with findings through the fourth grade was issued in spring 2023.

Georgia's Pre-K Program

Access

Total state pre-K enrollment	73,462
School districts that offer state program	100% (counties)
Income requirement	No income requirement
Minimum hours of operation	6.5 hours/day; 5 days/week
Operating schedule	School or academic year
Special education enrollment, ages 3 and 4	9,557
Federally funded Head Start enrollment, ages 3 and 4	16,875
State-funded Head Start enrollment, ages 3 and 4	0

Resources

*Pre-K programs may receive additional funds from federal or local sources that are not included in this figure. †Head Start per-child spending includes funding only for 3- and 4-year-olds. ‡K–12 expenditures include capital spending as well as current operating expenditures.